How to use video to engage employees while working from home

If you’re looking to ensure your employees are remaining engaged while working from home, then video is a great way to raise team morale, as well as build relationships between members of your workforce. Find out how video can help people stay connected as remote working is increasingly embraced by businesses everywhere!

Working from home remains one of the biggest work-related outcomes from the global pandemic, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the remote way of working is here to stay. A Hays survey from 2020 found that 47% of employers were open to retaining working from home as part of their model of employment, and this number will only increase as years go by.

Working from home presents its own set of challenges for employers, as workplace cohesion is no longer as easy as relying on organic interactions in a physical office to build workplace morale. As a business, it’s important to consider how you’re engaging employees when they’re not in the office, which is where video meetings and content can benefit your business. Video is a great way to build and maintain relationships with your workforce, as well as provide information to them that would otherwise be shared in-person during meetings.

Make the most of internal communication software

Gone are the days of video calls being exclusively the domain of leisure – nowadays, video calls are an essential part of workplace life, for both organizing meetings between different departments, as well as simulating water cooler conversations that won’t otherwise happen. It’s important to balance the amount of time using video calling software for meetings with the amount of time spent using it to catch up with employees, otherwise meeting fatigue may set in.

Technology has become a necessity as people work from home, with apps like Slack, Zoom and Miro proving to be essential to productivity while working from home. Indeed, from March to April 2020, Slack saw almost 350% growth in native Slack calls, with the term “slack someone” becoming a common term amongst workforces globally. Each of these programs replicate an aspect of office communication, and they all are examples of how the office culture that we once took for granted has now shifted online.

Annually, over 3.3 trillion meeting minutes take place on Zoom, as people move towards hosting meetings remotely, rather than in-person. Zoom’s growth through the pandemic demonstrated that meetings can be held just as effectively remotely as in-person, as well as showcasing how Zoom can be used for facilitating social interactions between employees. Hosting all-hands meetings on Zoom means that your whole workforce gets to catch up, and organizing fun activities like trivia means that people are able to put work on pause for a minute and enjoy each other’s company. It’s a great way to boost overall team morale.

 An example of interactive video being used in internal communications.

Use video to foster remote engagement

While it might be more difficult to engage your workforce while they’re working from home, that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Video communications are a great tool to help boost employee morale, as well as celebrating your workers so they feel recognized. Video allows your leadership team/s to communicate with their employees regularly, without taking too much time out of their day. Employees at video-savvy companies have been found to be 75% more likely to rate those companies highly when it comes to employee engagement, so it’s a proven method of communication.

Video content allows you to simulate social interactions that take place in the workplace, while also communicating information in a more personalized way, rather than sending emails that might get buried in people’s inboxes. If you’re looking to send out information to employees at scale, while also getting them to engage, then video content is a great way to go. No-one wants to spend their time trudging through countless eDMs, especially when a short, snappy video can get the job done.

Celebrate your employees’ success using video

Looking to celebrate special moments within the workplace while people are working remotely? Video offers a more visual means for celebrating milestones and achievements, as well as providing business updates and announcements. If you’re looking to showcase the statistics from a record month of sales, or you just want to recognize the work of someone that might not always get the limelight, then video is the way to go.

However, videos don’t always have to be used for formal announcements, which is one of the beauties of the medium. If it’s someone’s birthday, get other employees to send in birthday wishes and compile them in a video, or celebrate work anniversaries with messages from that person’s team. What’s more, you can make the videos more engaging by embedding interactive elements like polling, surveys and quizzes to encourage participation. You can use video for almost any occasion – the only limit is your imagination.

Onboard new hires who are working from home using video

Given the lockdowns across Australia, chances are you’ve hired at least one person recently that’s had their first day with your business at home, rather than in the office. This makes it a little bit harder for the new employee to get a grasp on your workplace culture, which is where a well-produced video can help them understand what it’s like to work as part of your business. Effective onboarding can drastically improve your chances of retaining the best talent, which is the goal of any business. While this might be a bit more difficult remotely, knowing how to make the most of video onboarding content is key.

Creating videos that are engaging and to the point will help your new employee/s to embed themselves within your workplace, especially if the videos introduce them to the other members of your workforce. If you’re looking to ensure the experience is an enjoyable one, then creating interactive videos not only allow you to present extra information and resources to the employee/s from within the video, but you can also see what new hires are engaging with within the video, so you can tweak the videos for future onboarding.

 An example of interactive video being used in internal communications.

Make the most compelling video content possible with interactive video

Now that you’ve committed to making video content, it’s important to make sure that your employees are interested. Keep your videos simple, and use three words rather than 100. Keep to the point! Ensure you have one clear objective for each video, and create it accordingly, rather than trying to complicate things. Employees are people too, and they’ll respond to videos that are fun, colorful and inspiring. If you keep things light and breezy (where appropriate) then your employees will engage with the content you’re making.

Interactions are also a great way to make video content compelling, as mentioned above. Using interactive video’s analytics dashboard, you’ll be able to track things like view rate, completion rate and interaction rate, so you can tweak your video content for success, depending on what your employees are looking for. Interactive video allows you to gather direct feedback on how remote working is going for them using features like quizzes and polling, but it’s also equally effective to ask your employees what they’d like to see more of during their time working from home, as well as what motivates them to succeed. Above all else, it’s important to treat remote working as its own thing, rather than a substitute for office life. That way, you’re primed for success, no matter what path forward your business takes in respect to returning to the office.

 An example of using interactive video to create compelling content.